The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, experienced the same kind of sharp reversal (急遽的逆轉) of fortune that is often featured in their collected fairy tales. Shortly after the births of the brothers, 1785 and 1786, their father was promoted to serve as the magistrate (地方法官), so the Grimms moved into a mansion with maids and a cook. They lived a fairy-tale like life. But one day, bad fortune struck. In 1796, their father, only 44 years old, suddenly died of pneumonia (肺炎). Without their father’s income, the family were forced to move to an almshouse (救濟院) just next door — cursed with a view of their beautiful former house.
The main reason for the brothers to collect all the fairy tales, legends, myths (神話) was to create a national identity (民族認同) for German speakers. This was before there was a Germany. They also began working on the most comprehensive (全面的、詳盡的) dictionary of the German language. Unfortunately neither lived to see the birth of their country.
The brothers were extremely close, virtually (幾乎) inseparable (難分離的). During their college years, Jacob briefly worked abroad for a professor, his brother wrote to him, “When you left, I thought my heart would tear in two. I couldn’t stand it.” Jacob vowed (發誓) that it would never happen again and drew out his plan for their future life together. “We will presumably (大概、可能) at last live quite withdrawn (隱居的、離群的) and isolated (孤立的), for we will not have many friends, and I do not enjoy acquaintances (泛泛之交).” When the younger brother Wilhelm married, Jacob lived with his brother and new sister-in-law.
Had their father not passed away at such a young age, the brothers might not have had the drive (動力). After the death of their dad, Jacob and Wilhelm no longer enjoyed the status (社會地位) that came with being the sons of an official. They had to pay their own way. Jacob wrote in his autobiography (自傳), “Sparseness (匱乏、貧困)spurs (激勵) a person to industriousness (勤奮) and work, keeps one from many a distraction (分心的事物) and infuses (注入) one with noble (高尚的) pride and keeps one conscious of self-achievement (自我成就).”
The Brothers Grimm were born and raised in the province of Hessen, 黑森州,法蘭克福市所在地, which had been settled in ancient times by the Chatti people, viewed as more barbarian (野蠻的) and tougher than other Germanic tribes during the Roman Empire. Due to its rugged terrain (崎嶇地形), the area became famous for mercenaries (傭兵). Twenty-five percent of British land forces in the American Revolutionary War were Hessian. This was mentioned in a Magic Treehouse book that we talked about before.
Because of a popular illustration (插畫) that appeared in an eighteen-nineties German magazine, we believe that the brothers collected their fairy tales from older, peasant (鄉下的、農民的) women, but this is actually not the case. The women that told the brothers the tales were well-educated (受良好教育的) women from affluent (富裕的) families who got their stories from villages and servants that they hired.
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